Oldenbarneveldt, Paul Buys and the great majority of burgher-regents in Holland belonged to the moderate or, as it was called, the "libertine" party, to which William the Silent had adhered and whose principles of toleration he had strongly upheld.

Leicester, largely influenced by spite against Oldenbarneveldt and the Hollanders for their opposition to his edict about trade with the enemy and to his appointment of Sonoy, threw himself into the arms of the extreme Calvinists, who were at heart as fanatical persecutors as the Spanish inquisitors themselves.

These "precisian" zealots held, by the governor-general's permission and under his protection, a synod at Dort, June, 1586, and endeavoured to organise the Reformed Church in accordance with their strict principles of exclusiveness.
By this series of maladroit acts Leicester had made himself so unpopular and distrusted in Holland that the Estates of that predominant province lost no opportunity of inflicting rebuffs upon him.

Stung by the opposition he met and weary of a thankless task, the governor determined at the end of November to pay a visit to England.

The Council of State was left in charge of the administration during his absence.
His departure had the very important effect of bringing the question of State-rights acutely to the front.